Hello BlackBerry! Let me show you my wares.. (breakeroids)

Hello there BlackBerry lovers!

I'm a solo mobile/tablet developer who has recently been introduced to the BlackBerry platform and I'm loving what I see. I'd like to let you know about the availability of my first PlayBook game, breakeroids, a retro-style title that has been very well received on iOS.

Going forward I won't be making platform-specific videos, so please mentally substitute "ScoreLoop" every time I mention GameCenter or OpenFeint If you're curious, a quick search should find lots of reviews (breakeroids has been picked for "game of the day"-type features on large sites like Game Informer, Gizmodo, and IGN)

Whilst I'm here, I also wanted to mention that I'm fully behind BB10. I was given an alpha device and already ported two of my games over, they are available in BlackBerry World for anyone lucky enough to have early hardware. I believe the URL is the same for breakeroids, and here is the link for Pin Fall:

I'm looking forward to the unification of BB10 on mobile and PlayBook, as I really want to give people access to my apps on all their BlackBerry devices without having to buy separate apps for PlayBook and BB10. I apologize in advance if you have to do this - you *may* be able to purchase breakeroids for BB10 first and get the PB "upgrade" for free because of the way versioning works, but I can't guarantee this.

I'm really excited about BlackBerry. You are a terrific community, and I'm hoping to see enough sales to make my porting efforts worthwhile. Going forward, I plan to release on BlackBerry and iOS at the same time, and given Apple's review times I'm willing to bet you guys will actually get the releases first

Thanks for bringing this! I will check this out when I get a chance. Quick quesiton - you say port, and that gets thrown around alot these days - is it a Native port over to PlayBook or using the Android Runtime port?

"Looking forward to the unification of BB10 on mobile and PlayBook"
So if I buy the PlayBook version ill have to buy again for BlackBerry10 but if I wait and buy it on BlackBerry10 it will be there waiting for free on the PlayBook?

Originally Posted by coolpowers

Hello there BlackBerry lovers!

I'm a solo mobile/tablet developer who has recently been introduced to the BlackBerry platform and I'm loving what I see. I'd like to let you know about the availability of my first PlayBook game, breakeroids, a retro-style title that has been very well received on iOS.

Going forward I won't be making platform-specific videos, so please mentally substitute "ScoreLoop" every time I mention GameCenter or OpenFeint If you're curious, a quick search should find lots of reviews (breakeroids has been picked for "game of the day"-type features on large sites like Game Informer, Gizmodo, and IGN)

Whilst I'm here, I also wanted to mention that I'm fully behind BB10. I was given an alpha device and already ported two of my games over, they are available in BlackBerry World for anyone lucky enough to have early hardware. I believe the URL is the same for breakeroids, and here is the link for Pin Fall:

I'm looking forward to the unification of BB10 on mobile and PlayBook, as I really want to give people access to my apps on all their BlackBerry devices without having to buy separate apps for PlayBook and BB10. I apologize in advance if you have to do this - you *may* be able to purchase breakeroids for BB10 first and get the PB "upgrade" for free because of the way versioning works, but I can't guarantee this.

I'm really excited about BlackBerry. You are a terrific community, and I'm hoping to see enough sales to make my porting efforts worthwhile. Going forward, I plan to release on BlackBerry and iOS at the same time, and given Apple's review times I'm willing to bet you guys will actually get the releases first

..evidently the email notification is broken, sorry I didn't respond earlier. I just assumed you all hated me

When I say port, I *mean* port, none of this Android host nonsense (I kid; it's pretty cool to be able to run a few Android apps that don't have native equivalents). For the PlayBook version, I rewrote breakeroids using Marmalade. For the BB10 games, they are completely native, created with a cross-platform framework.

Thanks for your interest, guys. Makes it all worthwhile. As I said, I'm excited about the future, the PB/BB10 platform is easily the most convenient for developers and RIM's support has been fabulous. Fingers crossed I can get my hands on final BB10 hardware though, because my dev device is dead :O

Re: Hello BlackBerry! Let me show you my wares.. (breakeroids)

..evidently the email notification is broken, sorry I didn't respond earlier. I just assumed you all hated me

When I say port, I *mean* port, none of this Android host nonsense (I kid; it's pretty cool to be able to run a few Android apps that don't have native equivalents). For the PlayBook version, I rewrote breakeroids using Marmalade. For the BB10 games, they are completely native, created with a cross-platform framework.

Thanks for your interest, guys. Makes it all worthwhile. As I said, I'm excited about the future, the PB/BB10 platform is easily the most convenient for developers and RIM's support has been fabulous. Fingers crossed I can get my hands on final BB10 hardware though, because my dev device is dead :O

You sir, have generated a sale with your honesty and hard work (love your port nonsense comment lol) once I go home

Have you contacted BlackBerry Dev about your bricked device? I'm sure they will try to help you out. Also, I saw on twitter another dev who managed to bring his device back from the dead

Hello BlackBerry! Let me show you my wares.. (breakeroids)

Picked it up today, and I like it! Very fast and fluid, game progresses very nicely. Like that there is a versus mode too! The only issue that I have been having is random crashing after starting up the game
I have a few questions though as well:

- Are Leaderboards working yet? Currently when I tape them they just make a beeping sound
- Could you possibly add a little glossary of the items you've seen so far in the game so that you remember what they do? Sometimes it is easy to forget
- Not a question but suggestion, man that would be cool if you could do online multiplayer! So frantic!

Have you contacted BlackBerry Dev about your bricked device? I'm sure they will try to help you out. Also, I saw on twitter another dev who managed to bring his device back from the dead

I've already sent it back as part of the developer trade-up program for the limited edition handset, so hopefully I won't have to wait too long after the 30th to get hardware again. Until then I have to make do with the simulator (which is actually pretty decent)

Thanks to those of you who have already bought it, totally appreciated!

I'm sorry to hear about crashes. If anyone has any, email me the details (support@coolpowers.com is fine) and I'll see what I can do. Bonus points if you can provide steps to reproduce.

The leaderboards should be working. I'm seeing players pop up in ScoreLoop. I do think I should provide some sort of notification that the game is connecting to ScoreLoop as I suppose it looks like it isn't doing anything (and it seems sliiiightly slower to connect with Marmalade than hitting the ScoreLoop API directly). I'm in two minds about adding other ScoreLoop management options, like creating an account if you don't already have one or changing your name, because once the PlayBook goes BB10 I'm assuming it will have the same Games app as the phones for managing all that.

So if I buy the PlayBook version ill have to buy again for BlackBerry10 but if I wait and buy it on BlackBerry10 it will be there waiting for free on the PlayBook?

Sorry, I missed this question. I honestly don't know - RIM is updating the dev portal to handle apps that run on both almost-the-same-but-not-quite platforms so for all I know it's something that might be possible right now but won't be in the future or vice versa. All I can say is that if it's possible for me to provide both versions for one purchase I'll be happy to set it up that way. A lot of iOS developers double-dipped when the iPad was first released, and I think that's pretty lame if you have hardly had to do any work to update for the new device.

I realize this is unlikely, but if there's anyone who bought breakeroids on the PlayBook and is lucky enough to be in the UK with a shiny new BB10, I'd love to know if it lets you download for BB10 without having to buy it again.

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